Posts by Pisnaz

I like clean and minimalistic but..

I find the interface designs coming out are pleasing save for the blast of white blinding me at night or even inside. It would be nice to see a grey or dark color being able to be used, and this tends to go for droid or apple etc. The old game screen reminded me of all those Hoya(?) games, mostly cards, released in the late 90's and probably still are.

I thought we had this with RFC 1149

"In addition, the US is reportedly looking to develop technology for a "shadow internet" or "internet in a suitcase" that will enable the creation of an independent connection to the international internet from inside a repressed country, maintaining internet access even if the local government pulls the plug. "

All you need to get portable is a couple of pigeons and such, though latency is a bitch.

Re: Dust-proof

They are usually used in the police cars due to the cold weather, those things can handle staying out overnight in the middle of winter and still boot with no issues. Of course the most common fault I fixed was from bored cops prying keys off the keyboard, or wearing out keys as they interfaced with the most used applications, games.

If memory serves me right it was a Gobook we tested out in my setups. On paper it was nice, back lit keys nice specs at the time ruggedized and around 1/2 the price. Once we installed them though every single Ethernet port broke off the mainboard and these were in basic setups with minimal abuse. Being that we interfaced with a number of devices over Ethernet this was a show stopper. That all said it was a few years back and I would hope they fixed that flaw by now.

I used and repaired Toughbooks when in the military and I can say without a doubt they are the best at the durable, portable computer setup. We tried other brands, and had numerous issues, like lan ports snapping off the mainboard.

The abuse I have seen these subjected to would make most people cringe but was handy when you had to justify the price. Coupled with the training and support levels we got from them I would recommend them to anyone needing them. I even have a older one at home for a project with a dock and car adapter power source as I know it will handle the cold weather in Canada.

Re: Oh, Kimble!

Oh wow, thank you. I finally made the connection. I recall his flash promo stuff and BMW with computers back when he was just Kimble. He came across as a tool then, seems not to of changed much with the name either.

First

I just got some Northern lights here in Canada, (appx around 45° 54' N) Only got a brief glimpse and not long enough to get my camera as the clouds rolled back in.

Usually with all the dire warnings and such I take them with a grain of salt, I think there was only 1 time I can recall having actual issues and that was with RF gear and degraded range. I was not in Quebec when the nasty stuff happened. But you try and explain to people how and why the systems can act up due to these, to most people, you may as well piss in the wind.

I have to agree, Serial ports are still needed. I can get by without an optical drive but the only worthwhile device I found when dealing with serial over another port was a Lantronix MSS4. Great kit but not what I want in my laptop bag just to work on the kit I need to deal with. Something about over usb seems to make it a pain, It may work but will eventually mess up is my experience.

The windows Live id integration actually worries me. I got it up in a VM pretty quick as well and got around handy enough. I bypassed metro and went for the desktop right away. Then came back to metro and played with it.

Some things I am not fond of, beyond metro and the focus on touch vs mouse are the Live id integration and default sharing of your personal information. I am digging around trying to view it as a common user vs a tech guy use to multiple interfaces and programs. I am really not fond of the social integration thrown in my face, my computer is a tool first a recreational device second and occasionally used to socialize with people.

Still playing around but some of my repulsion for things like the ribbon are gone but some new worries are growing.

Re: well i can confirm one thing

I have to agree with both points to a degree. I have seen the same also, you get outlook used maybe word and excel but that tends to be about it for the "average" office worker in some areas. Then you get into the extra fun stuff that will mean they run out of tiles or with old programs that just drop a mess into the tiles. Once you get past the first few tiles being filled it becomes a hunt and the users will balk. Just imagine the calls the first time their "desktop" being metro changes back to desktop mode to run a older application.

While I agree for those who use a minimal spread of applications it probably will be no problem, as they tend to be the same who never power off a machine, or worry too much as long as they have what they need handy. It is those self same that will flood you with calls as soon as that changes. Then you now are flooded with calls from those people you barely hear from who are savvy use a load of applications and are mildly savvy in the current windows experience. It becomes an IT hell when you have to field calls galore about interface changes cause the company refuses to listen to you and give training, or the users just let the training go in one ear and out the other knowing IT is a call away.

Granted when we see Windows 8 in the corporate environment it may of morphed so much as to not be recognized from today, but if it does roll out anything as it currently is it is going to be a nightmare.

Re: "fast and fluid"

Of course with KDE being ported to windows as a shell replacement it can bring the KDE look to windows and replace the evil metro. Once that is the norm at work and people try to replicate it at home it can have cross bleed bonuses for Linux in general as they see the shiny they know and then see it can be gotten for next to nothing to replace the mess of metro and such on a new laptop or desktop.

Undecided

First I must say the shooting on the ground at close range did make me wince, it is not the safest IMHO.

I am honestly undecided over all this, I do agree with him and his argument but the shooting of the laptop just seems weak. Fine she looses her laptop and such, but in my mind it would be of more benefit to just lock the sucker down.

The man is an it tech, granted he does not go into detail on his skills. With enough time and patience I am sure he could lock the access down to restrict her from facebook etc etc ect. If he was really genius then modify the host file, point the fb page at a local system, phish her passwords and anytime she posts, have a update to her fb page saying "my parents are amazing". You can teach a lesson without mass destruction, and a little evil thinking. Besides why destroy a laptop you paid for?

At the very worst re purpose the thing to say a digital picture frame, then she can see it every day, know it works but not be able to use it.

I used toughbooks with touch screens for ages in work and must say while I did not do away with a mouse or such the touch screen on them was handy and in some cases could speed up my working. Like anything it is all a matter of how you use them. In a laptop, in my case a hardened one I could toss around as needed and was not worried about breaking, it made got used mostly to poke up a file and display it much quicker. I can see it catching on, these systems will be light enough for a person to hold one handed and poke at. It worked for me in the application and times I used it, long term work naturally I used a desk chair and mouse etc but on the go in the field repairing stuff or using it to run media as I repaired stuff it was a blessing.

My big wish is a reversion towards the original tablet laptops where you can reverse and fold the screen down, then tossing a schematic or diagnostic flow chart on screen is easy and you can scroll and zoom one handed with minimal concentration dedicated away from your work.

We have smart serve over here in Canada, basically it says that if I serve you, be it 1 drink or 12, while you are under the influence I am responsible as the server. Note it says that, if it has been tested legally, I am unsure.

I hate this system, if a person is not responsible enough to say "I drove my car into a tree cause I had 6 beer, hopped into it and drove" then they should not drink. People with the mentality of shift it to the servers and staff are going to lead to a world where every time you ingest alcohol, your watch beeps, if you hit a limit your car will not unlock.

How can you expect a server to keep track of the numerous patrons, their drinks and then watch what they do as they leave the door? For that matter, how are we to magically know you had 4 beer in the house before you came, different people react differently, some are overt and some never change from the normal. Yes if my regulars are there I watch them and know their habits and that they cab or one of the wives comes for them, then again they are my regulars, the random Joe off the street though is the wildcard for me constantly.

Time for the people of the world to wake up and accept responsibility for their own actions.

That sounds great to get free use of 80A chargers at the Nissan dealer, but what were the costs when on your personal mains supply? I can not see them supporting free charges eternally so when the initial promo is over is there an estimated cost to charge up?

It is hard to compare the running cost of the car when this info is lacking. Even charge times off mains can be guesstimated to give us a running cost when charged at home. This can give a more accurate comparison to what we see with a petrol car.

My personal suspicion is that with rising electrical costs these will only boost your power bill, and not by small amounts either.

If you can give us, even rough figures it would be appreciated. Thanks.

Yes that is the point of a BSOD, and I use them to figure the issues out routinely, before having to wrestle with say a minidump. But since XP (possibly 2k), MS trying to avoid the Stigma of the BSOD decided to enforced automatic rebooting on every one, so mostly you got a flicker of blue and poof your system rebooted, defeating one of the best troubleshooting steps or reading the IT the error code.

I May be confused a bit here, but while RIM has taken a bit of a beating they are not dead yet. Did I miss a memo or something?

on a personal note. To me the new win phone interface reeks of romper room style layouts. We are in the 21st century, as we have no rocket cars our phones should not be filled with huge swatches of primary colours and look akin to the phone pad my grandma uses to dial with.

He may first want to check that Edison did not in fact invent electricity. Hell Edison did not even support the AC transmission form that Tesla advocated, and we now use. I so hate the yank belief that Edison is the god of electricity and all that derived from it.

Back in that day though people were a tad more proactive about knowledge. The drivers would learn how to change a tire or check oil etc because it was how society was in a way. We lost that somewhere.

People expect computers to work like a toaster yet do not want to even make the attempt to apply common sense to it. If for example you went to make toast and your toaster suddenly talked to you and said "if you toast with x brand bread only" that x brand bread would pay you 50 cents a slice, they would check their meds or verify what was drunk the night before. But when it comes via email, it must be true they assume.

The biggest risk to security is the user plain and simple. Yes admins can try as they like to lock it down and take these basic steps (they best be) but alas users will always want to show the guy next door the file they got at home that allows them to chase the ball with the mouse as cats on bicycles ride across the screen, and they will go to great lengths to make it happen and bypass security.

Hold people accountable and if they get viri or malware etc start docking pay or handing out pink slips, make training more accessible, and explain it to them without the alpha geek method or IT attitude and maybe things will get better. A good number of these poor sods were tossed at a computer later in life and told basically "figure it out, it is just a very complex calculator".

Until the user is taught and comprehends the whole security game is just a war with a potential front line breach in every cubicle. Proper security is great, yes by all means it should be done and admins should not "be stupid" but alas it has to also roll down hill and apply to users also.

You know, for a small city that was in other areas behind times, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada has had wifi coverage since around 2003. Granted at the time they had a great provincial Telco and sadly it has not expanded since, but when I lived there it was dirt simple to go to town, open the laptop and with none of the hassle of hotels or pay wifi you were on and connected at reasonable speeds.

It was so handy and just seamless it still amazes me when I go places and have nothing but a hassle or get asked to pay for wifi connections.

The Friday effect?

Maybe they are trying for the "Rebecca Black - Friday" effect. Make a song so horrible, with a video so pathetic it rockets to the top of the Youtube views and has so many dislikes it becomes a sensation.

Getting irked at this

I am getting tired of the claims of greatness of the old TV spectrum and how amazing it will make life. They will not be faster speeds from this, yes it will be a more stable, greater ranged and have more punch power (ability to enter buildings and pass through organics) but bandwidth does not magically go up when you reduce your frequency. It also has the lovely side effect of needing larger antennas which usually means they will use 1/2 or 1/4 wavelength antennas and thus it reduces pros they do gain.

As I understand "Super-Wifi" it uses the UHF merely as an interlink between APs and then it is back to normal, this does seem like a great idea for long range interlinks sans copper, but I would not be touting it as super. All it merely is is a repeater station they have done this for years. The fun part will be when people start sniffing and asking is that UHF signal is secure, I skimmed a bit but seems it may not be.

Canada reporting

Got a nice break in the clouds for 3 hrs or so around 2am over here in Eastern Ontario, Canada. I took in around 35 in the span of 1.5 hrs. Naturally the camera was either taking a photo in another part of the sky or had just taken a pic and was in busy mode as they came down. It was not as impressive as they claimed it should be, though I still had some light pollution and may of missed a number. I can recall better years. All in all not bad, and I caught 2 planes that can fool some unknowing types if need.